I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.

Pakistan is known in the international community and declared in the
country’s Constitution as an Islamic nation where Islam is glorified as
the superb religion and its followers are pious Muslims. There is no
doubt that Islam teaches tolerance, love, respect for other religions,
and that life and death are in the hands of Allah. The killing of any
human being is forbidden and in the Quran it is the highest form of sin.

But how Islam is defined in practice is yet a big question in
Pakistani society. In the absence of any clear definition about the
implementation of Islam a strong perception has been widely spread that
it can be implemented only through the violence and exemplary punishment
to those who do not properly follow its precepts. Saudi Arabia, being
the role model of Shariah and a real Islamic country, demonstrates its
commitment every Friday by handing down death sentences that are then
carried out by beheading. At the same time thieves have their hands
removed.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Some nonpartisan commentators finally recognize that current
US foreign policy continues to escalate militarily as though on
steroids. It has become evident that use of deadly force by a
US-dominated NATO is not only outside the parameters of international
and constitutional law, but also in some cases outside basic legal
principles that have stood the test of time not only for decades, but
for centuries. One explanation, however, for why American civil
society, in general, has not pushed back is the “better rhetoric” now
being used to sell war.

What is this better rhetoric and newly minted impetus for US-NATO’s
same dumb (actually insane) war agenda, what used to be blurted out as
“We must bomb the village to save it”? Constantly flitting through the
revolving doors of their official appointments, foreign-policy think
tanks and directorships of “human rights” organizations, proponents of
”Smart Power” make their compelling case for more (endless) war in
successfully urging us to “recast the fight against terror and nuclear
proliferation… from a dark, draining struggle into a hopeful, progressive cause aimed at securing an international system of liberal societies and defeating challenges to it.”

Thursday, August 23, 2012

The British government’s threat to invade the Ecuadorean embassy in
London and seize Julian Assange is of historic significance. David
Cameron, the former PR man to a television industry huckster and arms
salesman to sheikdoms, is well placed to dishonour international
conventions that have protected Britons in places of upheaval. Just as
Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq led directly to the acts of terrorismin
London on 7 July 2005, so Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague
have compromised the safety of British representatives across the world.

Threatening to abuse a law designed to expel murderers from foreign
embassies, while defaming an innocent man as an “alleged criminal”,
Hague has made a laughing stock of Britain across the world, though this
view is mostly suppressed in Britain. The same brave newspapers and
broadcasters that have supported Britain’s part in epic bloody crimes,
from the genocide in Indonesia to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,
now attack the “human rights record” of Ecuador, whose real crime is to
stand up to the bullies in London and Washington.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Editor’s remarks: When Pakistan was transformed
into a gutter of barbarism by the ignorant mullahs in the name of pure
‘Islam’ and their political bosses, both old and the new ones, the
people of Pakistan have been killing each other on sectarian grounds.
The seeds sown by Maududi have wrought havoc in Pakistan. In this
vicious cycle of violence and inhumanity, the Sunnis have specially
targeted Shias, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, etc.

The Christians of Pakistan have been the most oppressed and
marginalised socially, economically and politically. They are also the
most vulnerable people in Pakistan and they become an easy prey of the
rage of ignorant Muslim masses, who are always provoked by their
preachers and mullahs to commit crimes against the Christians. Now in
the name of the so-called blasphemy laws, any Muslim mischief-monger can
accuse a Christian of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, the Quran or
Islam. As a result, innocent Christians are victimised and penalised by
the Muslims. It is high time for the democratic forces and all people of
good-will in Pakistan to stand for the equal rights of all religious
communities in Pakistan and call for the abrogation of the blasphemy
laws. Instead Pakistan should have laws against those people who preach
hatred against any religious sect or religious minorities and provoke
violence in the name of a pure ‘Islam’. What is happening in Pakistan in
the name of pure ‘Islam’ has nothing to do with Islam; it is barbarism,
pure and simple.

Nasir Khan, Editor
—————-

11 Years old Pakistani Christian Girl Falsely Accused of Burning 10 Pages of The Quran

We have received news of another very unfortunate event in Pakistan. A
11 year old Christian girl with Down syndrome named Rimsha daughter of
Misrak Masih, resident of Umara Jaffar, sector G12/0 Islamabad, has been
falsely accused of burning 10 pages of the Quran. She was arrested on
August 17 by the women police station with the FIR no as 303/12 at 6:45
pm. The complainants name is Alsyed Muhammad Ummad.

The whole community is now threatened by extremists wanting to burn
down the village. 2-300 people have left their homes and are in hiding
due to threats from mobs declaring that they will soon attack the
village. APMA has been providing for their food expenses since many have
left their residence. Dr. Paul Bhatti along with APMA members have so
far controlled the situation by reporting the incident to the police.

Detailed information from the families
of those killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and from local sources
on strikes that have targeted mourners and rescue workers provides
credible new evidence that the majority of the deaths in the drone
war in Pakistan have been civilian noncombatants – not “militants,”
as the Obama administration has claimed.

The new evidence also shows that the
statistical tally of casualties from drone attacks in Pakistan
published on the web site of the New America Foundation (NAF) has
been systematically understating the deaths of large numbers of
civilians by using a methodology that methodically counts them as
“militants.”

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Haaretz knows better. Still it misreports on Iran. On August 12, its editorial headlined “Netanyahu’s dangerous demagoguery on Iran” saying:

“Iranian nuclear weapons are a threat to Israel – but its leaders’ demagoguery is just as dangerous.”

Haaretz, Israeli officials, US and other Western ones know Iran has
no nuclear weapons program. It likely has no intention of pursuing one.
It abhors them and wants a nuclear-free Middle East.

Israel alone in the region is menacing. It has a powerful arsenal and
declared intention to use it if threatened. Instead of pointing fingers
the wrong way, Haaretz editorial policy should report responsibly.

Iran threatens no one. It hasn’t attacked another country in over 200
years. Israel is nuclear armed and dangerous. No one in the region and
beyond is safe.

Al Haq
said the PA’s “persistent disregard for international law, combined
with recurring abuses committed by several Palestinian security agencies
in the West Bank have done nothing to appease the frustrations of
Palestinian people.”

Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad lack legitimacy. So do those
around them. “Palestinians have come to expect little more than the
suppression of freedom of expression, arbitrary arrest and even worse
from their governing authority.”

Sunday, August 12, 2012

There are images from the U.S. War against Vietnam that have been
indelibly imprinted on the minds of Americans who lived through it. One
is the naked napalm-burned girl running from her village with flesh
hanging off her body. Another is a photo of the piles of bodies from the
My Lai massacre, where U.S. troops executed 504 civilians in a small
village. Then there is the photograph of the silent scream of a woman
student leaning over the body of her dead friend at Kent State
University whose only crime was protesting the bombing of Cambodia in
1970. Finally, there is the memory of decorated members of Vietnam
Veterans Against the War testifying at the Winter Soldier Hearings,
often in tears, to atrocities in which they had participated during the
war.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

The German military is considering the
purchase of combat drones. But we should not allow ourselves to be
seduced by the idea that an unmanned aircraft is a humane weapon. On the
contrary, they expose the true nature of war in all its brutality.

A suicide bomber needs to be 100 percent
willing to sacrifice his life. With a drone pilot, on the other hand,
the risk of pilot death drops to zero percent. The West’s war on
Islamist terror is currently being waged between these two conflicting
priorities. Nothing is more indicative of the asymmetry of the war, and
nothing is as symbolic of the cultures that are waging it. It’s a war
between those who are willing to sacrifice everything and those who are
unwilling to give up anything — a war of sacrifice versus convenience,
bodies versus technology and risk versus safety.

Like no other weapon, the drone
stems from the needs and strengths of the West. Aside from convenience,
technology and safety, it also represents a moral claim. In the world
of weapons, the drone is a good weapon, at least at first glance. It
claims no victims on one side and relatively few on the other, because
it fires precision missiles.

Friday, August 10, 2012

The use of drones by
one state to kill people in other countries is fast emerging as an
international human rights issue of serious public concern. This was
evident in the recent session (June 18-July 6, 2012) of the Human Rights
Council in Geneva, both in the official meetings and in NGO seminars.
The use of drones, or pilotless aircraft operated by remote control,
by the government in one country to strike at persons and other targets
in other countries, has been increasingly used by the United States, in
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Instead of following clear legal standards, the practice of drone
attacks has become a vaguely defined and unaccountable “license to
kill”, according to a 2010 report of a UN human rights special
rapporteur.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

(Address Delivered February 20, 1960, Over Radio Station WIME, Miami, Florida)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

This is Joseph Lewis speaking.

Although as a child I was instructed in the religion of my parents,
I never came under the spell of religious training long enough to so warp
my mentality as not to be able to see any other viewpoint.

I was never trained to espouse the cause of Atheism. I came to accept
Atheism as the result of independent thought and self-study.

I came to my conclusions after a full analysis and an impartial consideration
of the various religious creeds and the different systems of philosophy.
In my study of the different fields of thought, I found no philosophy that
contained so many truths, and inspired one with so much courage, as Atheism.
Atheism equips us to face life, with its multitude of trials and tribulations,
better than any other code of living that I have yet been able to find.
It is grounded in the very roots of life itself. Its foundation is based
on Nature, without superfluities and false garments. No sham or shambles
are attached to it.

Atheism rises above creeds, and puts Humanity upon one plane. There
can be no "chosen people" in the Atheist philosophy. There are
no bended knees in Atheism; no supplications, no prayers; no sacrificial
redemptions; no "divine" revelations; no washing in the blood
of the lamb; no crusades, no massacres, no holy wars; no heaven, no hell,
no purgatory; no silly rewards and no vindictive punishments; no christs
and no saviors; no devils, no ghosts, and no gods.

Atheism breaks down the barriers of nationalities and, like, "one
touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Systems of religion make
people clannish and bigoted.

Atheism is a vigorous and a courageous philosophy. It is not afraid
to face the problems of life, and it is not afraid to confess that there
are problems yet to be solved. It does not claim that it has solved all
the questions of the universe, but it does claim that it has discovered
the approach, and learned the method, of solving them.

The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news
about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar
bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for
corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America,
something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the
political party of the super-rich.

As I wondered at this strange alliance of the dirt poor with the
mega-rich, I remembered that in 2004 Thomas Frank wondered about how the
Republicans had managed to convince the poor to vote against their best
interests. Frank’s answer, or part of his answer, is that the
Republicans use “social issues,” such as gay marriage and Janet
Jackson’s exposed nipple to work up indignation over the threat to moral
values posed by liberal Democrats.

The working poor have been convinced by Republican propaganda that
voting Democrat means giving the working poor’s tax dollars to the
non-working poor, to providing medical care and schooling for illegal
aliens, and being soft on terrorism.
To the pick-up truck driver, standing up for America means standing
up for bankster bailouts and the military/security complex’s
multi-trillion dollar wars.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

The human race stands on the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a
species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent
life on the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of
nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the legality of nuclear
weapons and nuclear deterrence must directly come to grips with the fact
that the nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes as
defined by the Nuremberg Charter of August 8, 1945, and violated several
basic provisions of the Regulations annexed to Hague Convention No. 4
Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907), the rules of
customary international law set forth in the Draft Hague Rules of Air
Warfare (1923), and the United States War Department Field Manual 27-10,
Rules of Land Warfare (1940). According to this Field Manual and the
Nuremberg Principles, all civilian government officials and military
officers who ordered or knowingly participated in the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been lawfully punished as war
criminals. The start of any progress toward resolving humankind’s
nuclear predicament must come from the realization that nuclear weapons
have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have
always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally
lawless and criminal behavior.

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

On this day in 1945 the United States demonstrated that it was as
morally bankrupt as the Nazi machine it had recently vanquished and the
Soviet regime with which it was allied. Over Hiroshima, and three days
later over Nagasaki, it exploded an atomic device that was the most
efficient weapon of genocide in human history. The blast killed tens of
thousands of men, women and children. It was an act of mass annihilation
that was strategically and militarily indefensible. The Japanese had
been on the verge of surrender. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had no military
significance. It was a war crime for which no one was ever tried. The
explosions, which marked the culmination of three centuries of physics,
signaled the ascendancy of the technician and scientist as our most
potent agents of death.

Gora
propagated atheism as a positive way of life. He toured extensively in
India and went round the world in 1970 and again in 1974.

He undertook many practical programmes to fight against social,
economic and political inequalities and injustices. He conducted
satyagraha campaigns before and after Independence and went to gaol many
a time. As a social revolutionary, he took up programmes for the
eradication of caste and untouchability and fought against superstitions
and blind beliefs. Gora’s life was a saga of struggle for the
propagation of atheism.

Gora was a prolific writer. He wrote extensively in Telugu and
English on atheism for more than four decades. In this book we are
publishing a collection of his articles written in The Atheist, between 1969-75. They deal with diverse aspects.

Atheist Centre intends to publish the select writings of Gora in
English and Telugu. Already more than twenty books have been published.
With the cooperation and support of innumerable friends, we wish to
publish all other writings soon.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Excerpts from ‘The Myth of Indian Claim to JAMMU AND KASHMIR ––A REAPPRAISAL’

by Alistair Lamb

The formal overt Indian intervention in the internal affairs of the
State of Jammu and Kashmir began on about 9.00 a.m. on 27 October 1947,
when Indian troops started landing at Srinagar airfield. India has
officially dated the commencement of its claim that the State was part
of Indian sovereign territory to a few hours earlier, at some point in
the afternoon or evening of 26 October. From their arrival on 27 October
1947 to the present day, Indian troops have continued to occupy a large
proportion of the State of Jammu and Kashmir despite the increasingly
manifest opposition of a majority of the population to their presence.
To critics of India’s position and actions in the State of Jammu and
Kashmir the Government of New Delhi has consistently declared that the
State of Jammu and Kashmir lies entirely within the sphere of internal
Indian policy. Do the facts support the Indian contention in this
respect?

The State of Jammu and Kashmir was a Princely State within the
British Indian Empire. By the rules of the British transfer of power in
Indian subcontinent in 1947 the Ruler of the State, Maharajah Sir Hari
Singh, with the departure of the British and the lapsing of Paramountcy
(as the relationship between State and British Crown was termed), could
opt to join either India or Pakistan or, by doing nothing, become from
15 August 1947 the Ruler of an independent polity. The choice was the
Ruler’s and his alone: there was no provision for popular consultation
in the Indian Princely States during the final days of the British Raj.
On 15th August 1947, by default, the State of Jammu and Kashmir became
independent.

Exactly ten years ago, two memos written by John Yoo, a lawyer in the
Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, were signed by his
immediate boss, Jay S. Bybee. In these two memos, Yoo, also a law
professor at UC Berkeley, attempted to redefine torture so that it could
be used on Abu Zubaydah, an alleged “high-value detainee” seized in the “war on terror,” even though the US is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the use of torture under any circumstances.

These two memos, generally known as the Bybee memos, but forever known to anyone with a conscience as the “torture memos,”
marked the start of an official torture program that will forever be a
black mark on America’s reputation — as well as providing cover for
torturers worldwide, and turning America into such a dubious and lawless
nation that President Obama and his administration have shied away form
holding any of their predecessors accountable for their actions, and
have swallowed the Bush administration’s rhetoric about a “war on
terror” to such an extent that, although torture has been officially
repudiated, the administration has presided over a massive increase in the use of unmanned drones to assassinate those regarded as a threat, without any judicial process, and in countries with which the US is not at war, including US citizens.